


the sun never sets

by bossymarmalade (maggie)



Category: Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Genre: Case Fic, Gen, Identity Issues, Reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-18
Updated: 2010-01-18
Packaged: 2017-10-06 17:11:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggie/pseuds/bossymarmalade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>brothers aren't the only things we keep secret 'round here</p>
            </blockquote>





	the sun never sets

**Author's Note:**

> standard foreword: if i have written something problematic/oppressive to a marginalized group that you find hurtful, please please please don't think twice about telling me. i will never spew hate at you, will never attack you, and i will always thank you and make the change.

Sitting back-to-back in a pitch black cellar, as it turned out, was even more dull in practice than it was in theory. If it weren't for the pressure of Holmes' tense spine against his, Watson wasn't entirely sure that he would've remained awake and upright; his ability to spend long periods on the alert had been rattled and reduced dreadfully after he'd been wounded in Afghanistan.

"Steady on, old boy," Holmes murmured, and Watson realized he'd sighed aloud for possibly the third time in as many minutes. The crack of faint light in the floor that he was monitoring hadn't changed since he'd begun monitoring it, but at this point he was so bored and tired that he was starting to see flickers where none existed.

"Perhaps you miscalculated this time," he suggested, pitching his voice low. "Perhaps they won't actually make any attempt to enter these premises tonight."

Holmes' voice was smooth and unruffled when he replied, "Nonsense. To postpone their entry till tomorrow night would mean adding one extra day to an already time-sensitive operation and greatly multiply their chances of being discovered by the residents; they _must_ make their move tonight, or forfeit entirely." His shoulders squared against Watson's, making the doctor unconsciously mirror the movement so they remained matched in pressure and frame. "I do apologize," Holmes continued, his voice taking on a decidedly unctuous tone, "if I am taking you from any husbandly duties you would rather be pursuing."

Watson had, as a matter of course, just at that moment been thinking wistfully of his bed and a hot water bottle taking the persistent cold from his ankles, Mary sitting to unpin her hair and shake it out with the sudden waft of lilacs. It was far beyond Watson's mental acuities at the moment to attempt retracing whatever it was that had alerted Holmes to this line of thought -- he'd shifted his hips to one side, perhaps, or snuffled when he might have sniffed -- but it was desperately unfair that even in the darkness, his friend was able to bring him up unawares.

"Mary knows that you need my assistance from time to time," Watson said, as blandly as he was able. "And she gives her blessing each time I mention it to her, as I routinely do. We keep nothing from each other." Holmes made no acknowledgement of this piece of information, either verbally or physically, and Watson felt a perverse pleasure in the silence.

After a few moments, however, Holmes remarked in a colourless tone, "Rather unusual for a young married couple to be so transparent with each other," and Watson smiled in the darkness as there was no-one to see it.

"It is, I suppose," he said. "But I adhere to an invaluable piece of advice passed on to me by my nani, a singular woman of great wisdom and fortitude; she told me to never conceal anything important from my wife, but even more than that, to never conceal anything trivial."

"A pithy enough -- if rather flannelly -- homily, Watson," Holmes said. "You've never mentioned this nanny before, however, and I find it peculiar that you should have had one at all, given what I know of your upbringing."

Watson gingerly shifted his game leg before answering, the pain making him rather more brusque than he intended: "I learned not to mention her, as I grew quite tired of chaps referring to me as having a touch of the tar brush." Holmes' head shifted at this statement, his hair trailing against the back of Watson's neck and breath suddenly much closer to Watson's ear as he continued, "I referred not to an English 'nanny', I'm afraid, but 'nani', as one's maternal grandmother is referred to in the Hindoostani language."

The silence in the cellar seemed to thicken around them, broken only by the faint slices of light coming from those blasted cracks in the floor. Watson pressed his knuckles hard into the tangled muscle of his thigh, waiting; Holmes turned his head back and his shoulder blades knifed against Watson as he digested this new revelation. "My dear Watson," he said finally, voice soft as breadcrumbs, "just when I start to believe that I have every inch of you figured out."

"All the available evidence suggests that I'm closer to saying that about _you_," Watson pointed out, "than for it to hold true the other way 'round," and for once, Holmes was inclined to agree.


End file.
